Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "are getting very, very close to treason” with their opposition to the Iraq war, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay charged.
In a meeting with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s editorial board on Monday, DeLay declared: "We have people dying. Not just our soldiers, but innocent citizens dying in Iraq and Afghanistan at the hands of these evil people, and you have your elected leaders making these kinds of statements that embolden the enemy. It’s unbelievable.”
Last week Reid angered the Bush administration when he said the war in Iraq is "lost.”
And he said on Monday that the Democratic-controlled Congress would push legislation requiring that the U.S. begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq on Oct. 1.
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When a Tribune-Review interviewer told DeLay, "Treason. Now that’s a pretty serious charge,” DeLay reportedly responded:
"And I’m serious about it. For the Majority Leader of the United States Senate in the time of war, with soldiers dying on the ground, announcing that we had lost the war, is very close to treasonous.
"I looked it up while we were driving over here, what the definition of treason is. It’s the betrayal of trust. I have never in my adult life, nor in my understanding of history, seen something so blatantly outrageous for political reasons.”
The Democrats’ withdrawal demand would be attached to a bill needed to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush has threatened to veto any bill that includes a withdrawal date.
DeLay said Bush cannot afford to lose this battle, and must demand a "clean bill” without a withdrawal date or pork barrel appropriations for unrelated projects, DeLay told the Tribune-Review.
The president "comes back and says, ‘I want a clean bill, and unless I get a clean bill with no pork in it, I’m going to veto it,’” said DeLay. "See who blinks.”